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The Guru

Once upon a time, somewhere on the Indian subcontinent, a set of parents were having trouble with their son. This son had developed an addiction for chocolates. He ate them morning, noon, and night. His weight had ballooned to twice as much as was normal. Being concerned parents, his mother and father sought the advice of the local village guru. They had been advised by this guru several times in the past, always with satisfactory results. When they described their problem to him, he sat and thought for a very long while. Eventually, he told the parents that he could help them with their son, but it would be awhile before he could do so. The guru asked them to return with their son in a month. The parents were confused. Never before had the guru not provided immediate advice. However, one does not argue with a guru, so the parents left. A month later the parents returned with their son. The guru immediately began to develop a program to help the boy with his addiction. The parents were very satisfied with his advice. At the end of the hour, the guru dismissed the family. Still curious, the parents asked as they were leaving, "Sir! We are confused. You asked us to wait a month before you would help us. We don't understand why." The guru responded, "You see, a month ago I had a problem much like your son's. It was necessary for me to deal with my addiction to chocolates before I could help him with his."
The Refiner of Silver

alachi 3:3 says: “He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.” This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study class and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God. One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to th group at their next class. That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn’t mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver. As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities. The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot then she thought again about the verse that says: “He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.” She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. the man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed. The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, “How do you know when the silver is fully refined?” He smiled at her and answered, “Oh, that’s easy— when I see my image in it.” If today you are feeling the heat of the fire, remember that God has His eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.
The Parable of the Owl Express

During my college days, I was one of a class of students appointed to fieldwork as a part of our prescribed courses in geology. A certain assignment had kept us in the field many days. We had traversed, examined, and charted miles of lowlands and uplands, valleys and hills, mountain heights and canyon defiles. As the time allotted to the investigation drew near its close, we were overtaken y a violent windstorm, followed by a heavy snow— unseasonable and unexpected, but which, nevertheless, increased in intensity so that we were in danger of being snowbound in the hills. The storm reached its height while we were descending a long and steep mountainside several miles from the little railway station at which we had hoped to take a train that night for home. With great effort we reached the station late at night while the storm was yet raging. We were suffering from the intense cold incident to biting wind and driving snow; and, to add to our discomfiture, we learned that the expected train had been stopped by snowdrifts a few miles from the little station at which we waited. . . .The train for which we so expectantly and hopefully waited was the Owl Express— a fast night train connecting large cities. Its time schedule permitted stops at but few and these the most important stations but, as we knew, it had to stop at this out-of -the-way post to replenish the water supply of the locomotive. Long after midnight the train arrived in a terrific whirl of wind and snow. I lingered behind my companions as they hurriedly clambered aboard, for I was attracted by the engineer, who during the brief stop, while his assistant was attending to the water replenishment, bustled about the engine oiling some parts, adjusting others, and generally overhauling the panting locomotive. I ventured to speak to him, busy though he was. I asked how he felt on such a night— wild, weird, and furious, when the powers of destruction seemed to be let loose, abroad and uncontrolled, when the storm was howling and when danger threatened from every side. I thought of the possibility— the probability even– of snowdrifts or slides on the track, of bridges and hight trestles which may have been loosened by the storm, of rock masses dislodged from the mountainside — of these and other possible obstacles. I realized that in the event of accident through obstruction on tor disruption of the track, the engineer and the fireman would be the ones most exposed to danger; a violent collision would most likely cost them their lives. All of these thoughts and others I expressed in hasty questioning of the bustling, impatient engineer. His answer was a lesson not yet forgotten. In effect he said, though in jerky and disjointed sentences: “Look at the engine headlight. Doesn’t that light up the track for a hundred yards [90 m] or more? Well, all I try to do is to cover that hundred yards of lighted track. That I can see, and for that distance I know that the roadbed is safe. And,” he added, with what, through the swirl and the dim lamplighted darkness of the roaring night, I saw was a humorous smile on his lips and a merry twinkle in his eye, “believe me, I have never been able to drive this old engine of mine — God bless her! — so fast as to outstrip that hundred yards of lighted track. The light of the engine is always ahead of me!” As he climbed to his place in the cab, I hastened to board the first passenger coach; and as I sank into the cushioned seat, in blissful enjoyment of the warmth and general comfort, offering strong contrast to the wildness of the night without, I thought deeply of the words of the grimy, oil-stained engineer. They were full of faith— the faith that accomplishes great things, the faith that gives courage and determination, the faith that leads to works. What if the engineer had failed, had yielded to fright and fear, had refused to go on because of the threatening dangers? Who knows what work may have been hindered, what great plans may have been nullified, what God-appointed commissions of mercy and relief may have been thwarted had the engineer weakened and quailed? For a little distance the storm-swept track was lighted up; for that short space the engineer drove on! We may not know what lies ahead of us in the future year, nor even in the days or hours immediately beyond. But for few yards, or possibly only a few feet, the track is clear, our duty is plain, our course is illumined. For that short distance, for the next step, lighted by the inspiration of God, go on!
Fish

Two fish were swimming when they saw a piece of meat dangling before them. The younger fish darted toward it with an open mouth. The older fish cried out, “Stop! You can’t see it, but there is a hook inside that meat. It is connected by an invisible line to a pole outside the water. There is a man holding the pole. If you eat the meat, the hook will catch in your jaw and the man will pull you out of the water. He will cut you open with a knife, roast you on a fire and eat you. Then he will throw your remains to his cat.” The young fish stopped. The two of them swam away. But when the young fish was alone, he thought to himself, “Let me investigate for myself how accurate these claims are.” He went back to the meat, swam around it, above and below it. He swam as far as he could in widening circles around the meat. After a long search, he said to himself, “I’ve looked far and wide, and I haven’t found any sign of a man, a pole, a knife, a fire or a cat. In fact, I’ve found no trace of anything outside this water we live in. These must just be stories.” He went back to the meat and ate it. The hook caught in his jaw, he felt himself being yanked out of the water. He saw a pole, a man and a knife, but at that point his knowledge was useless.
The Obstacle in our Path.

In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the kirig's wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the king indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many of us never understand. Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition.
Knowledge

A scientific convention was held at a lakeside resort. After the first day’s proceedings, a mathematician, a physicist, an astronomer and a molecular biologist hired a boatman to row them around on the lake. As they sat in the boat, they discussed string theory, bubble universes, the Gaea Hypothesis and other abstruse topics. The biologist noticed the boatman looking at them from the corner of his eyes. He asked him, “What do you think of these ideas?” The boatman replied, “I didn’t understand any of it.” The astronomer asked him how far he had studied. He told them he couldn’t even read. “I hate to say it,” said the physicist, “but you seem to have wasted a good part of your life.” The boatman remained silent. By now they were out in the middle of the lake, far from shore. A sudden storm whipped up. The waves started churning and heaving. All of a sudden, the boat flipped over. The boatman started swimming for shore. The scientists cried out, “Help! We can’t swim!” The boatman called back, “I hate to say it, but you seem to have wasted your whole lives.”
Frog in a Milk-Pail

A frog was hopping around a farmyard, when it decided to investigate the barn. Being somewhat careless, and maybe a little too curious, he ended up falling into a pail half-filled with fresh milk. As he swam about attempting to reach the top of the pail, he found that the sides of the pail were too high and steep to reach. He tried to stretch his back legs to push off the bottom of the pail but found it too deep. But this frog was determined not to give up, and he continued to struggle. He kicked and squirmed and kicked and squirmed, until at last, all his churning about in the milk had turned the milk into a big hunk of butter. The butter was now solid enough for him to climb onto and get out of the pail! "Never Give Up!"
3 bananas in the Morning and 4 in the Afternoon.

Zhuangzi told this story to his disciples to make a point: Once a zookeeper said to his monkeys: "You'll get 3 bananas in the Morning and 4 in the afternoon." All monkeys are upset. "OK. How about 4 bananas in Morning and 3 in the afternoon?" Hearing this, the monkeys are content. One should realize that sometimes a change in phrasing does not represent a real change.
The Axe

A man who lost his axe suspected his neighbour's son of stealing it. To him, as he observed the boy, the way the lad walked, the expression on his face, the manner of his speech - in fact everything about his appearance and behaviour betrayed that he had stolen the axe. Not long afterwards the man found his axe while digging in his cellar. When he saw his neighbour's son again, nothing about the boy's behaviour nor appearance seemed to suggest that he had stolen the axe.
An Argument About The Sun

When Confucius was traveling in the eastern part of the country, he came upon two children hot in argument, so he asked them to tell him what it was all about. "I think," said one child, "that the sun is near to us at daybreak and far away from us at noon." The other contended that the sun was far away at dawn and nearby at midday. "When the sun first appears," said one child, "it is as big as the canopy of a carriage, but at noon it is only the size of a plate or a bowl. Well, isn't it true that objects far away seem smaller while those nearby seem bigger?" "When the sun comes out," pointed out the other, "it is very cool, but at midday it is as hot as putting your hand in boiling water. Well, isn't it true that what is nearer to us is hotter and what is farther off is cooler?" Confucius was unable to settle the matter for them. The two children laughed at him, "Who says you are a learned man?"